CANBERRA Convention Bureau has named Michael Matthews as its new CEO, effective October 1, 2015.
Matthews is currently the executive director of Meetings and Conventions PEI, where he is responsible for marketing, sales and product development for the province of Prince Edward Island in Canada.
The Australian national has spent the last 14 years in sales, operations and destination marketing roles in the Canadian market.
THAILAND Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is intensifying its promotions in the Philippines, a key source market that is bouncing back after Thailand’s year of political instability.
TCEB acting director Nooch Homrossukhon commented that 80 per cent of MICE from the Philippines are incentive groups. “We’re expecting not bigger events but bigger number of events of 50 to 150 pax per event,” she said.
The Philippines was Thailand’s ninth biggest market with 25,553 pax during the fiscal year October 2012 to September 2013, TCEB’s peak year.
Though it rose to sixth place in the following fiscal year, numbers more than halved to 11,197 pax due to Thailand’s political troubles. After the dramatic drop in FY 2014, the Philippines is showing significant improvement with 19,447 pax in the first half of the fiscal year October 2014 to March 2015, said TCEB acting director Nooch Homrossukhon.
Nooch explained that many companies that held back their MICE events during Thailand’s period of instability will likely return over the rest of the year, crediting social media and word of mouth for the return of MICE traffic.
TCEB unveiled its Thailand – Connect The World scheme offering financial subsidies and spiced up privileges and discounts, among others, for MICE groups at its roadshow in the Philippines earlier this month.
To ease safety concerns, TCEB has also spoken to meeting organisers to reassure them that the CVB has contingency plans in place.
LOVE it or hate it, technology is making an impact on the travel management industry and Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s (CWT) latest report has identified the top five trends that are affecting managed travel today, including mobile technology and the sharing economy.
Titled Faster, smarter, better? Emerging technologies and trends and their impact on managed travel, the study evaluated over 15 different industry trends and technologies with feedback from travel managers and travellers.
CWT found that travel managers are open to new technologies and the majority of travel managers surveyed who rated the impact of new technologies and trends moderate to high also have firm plans to expand programmes to work new technologies into their operations or are actively considering their options.
The trend thought to have the most impact on managed travel is mobile technology, which includes wearables, seamless multi-channel access across devices, apps, and location based services. There is therefore a need for a clear mobile policy to steer travellers towards using approved apps and solutions and address data safety concerns.
The second is a trend towards more customization in services, driven by Big Data, social media and IATA’s new distribution capability for airline inventory.
Peer-to-peer services such as Airbnb and Uber are also creating specialised products for the managed travel market to address safety concerns and expense management issues in particular.
Travel managers have also shown interest in fare- and rate-tracking technology enabling their programmes to generate more savings, as well as technology-based, proactive rebooking services for employees who face trip disruptions.
New payment solutions that simplify processes, reinforce policy compliance and protect against fraud are also very welcome.
CWT’s study spanned December 2014 to May 2015 and involved more than 65 travel management experts from companies, business travel associations, travel management companies, technology and solutions providers, travel suppliers, trade media and consultants.
It also took into account a detailed online survey that polled 1,080 from four global companies and a similar survey involving 127 travel managers worldwide.
TWO heads are better than one, goes the adage, and BCD Meetings & Events is taking that advice to heart with the merger of its two operational units.
The company issued a statement yesterday to announce that its two operational arms BCD M&I and BCD Travel Group have been merged to form a single entity with more than 700 employees and operations in more than 40 countries.
The integration builds on existing collaborations and eliminates duplication in some products and services for more streamlined service delivery, better leverage with suppliers and a larger pool of meeting and event experts.
Former BCD M&I global president Scott Graf heads up the new incarnation, BCD Meetings & Events.
He said in the statement: “The time was right to integrate these two operational units. While we found great success in meeting market needs with separate meetings and group travel organisations, the new configuration positions us better for future growth and scalability.
“The meetings and events business is booming around the world, and our shareholder is committed to seeking out investment opportunities in the meetings and events space. The new brand positions us for growth,” Graf commented.
REGIONAL and international MICE industry members at this morning’s Singapore MICE Forum (SMF) 2015 keynote address were told to manage their expectations regarding immediate streamlined visa, VAT and other business rules with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) integration framework completion set for December 21, 2015.
Keynoter Ong Keng Yong, Singapore ambassador-at-large and executive deputy chairman at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said headway has been made on removing economic obstacles, but the December date is not the end of the integration process but a “milestone”.
While there will be a freer flow of goods, services and people in ASEAN, travel from Singapore to Myanmar or from Vietnam to Myanmar will still not be visa free, he said, adding Singapore still has to negotiate bilateral agreements with one or two member countries.
Nevertheless the MICE industry and service-oriented businesses will see many opportunities arise from the “standardisation of rules” and more streamlined processes for bringing in participants and products for events.
Ong said: “It will no longer be 10 different countries and 10 different sets of (economic) rules.” The focus is now on building capacity for efficient and effective implementation, he added.
Reacting to the keynote address, Aloysius Arlando, CEO, SingEx Group, acknowledged that AEC integration is still a long road and full integration “may not happen in my life time”.
Sumate Sudasna, president, Thailand Incentive and Convention, said a common language would expedite the integration process. “However, English is not the common language in many ASEAN countries. With China driving the world economy, Chinese may become the working language much like when people were willing to learn Japanese when the country was an economic powerhouse.”
MEETING delegates are changing the way they consume content, requiring planners to relook the design of their events, said a brand experience expert at this week’s PCMA Meetings Forum Singapore.Lisa VanRosendale, senior vice president of FreemanXP, who kicked off the day’s presentation, said: “The audience wants bite-size content, on-demand and on-the-go concepts, engaging formats and participatory experiences.”
Some of the learning trends highlighted by VanRosendale include flipped learning, which sees people acquiring knowledge outdoors and returning to the classroom to solve issues together; and gamification, which satisfies people’s “love to connect with each other”, among others.
When asked if the entry of Millennials into the workplace has catalysed the change in information consumption, VanRosendale said: “The consumer space has everything that influences the way we do events. I’m not a Millennial but I’m customising my consumer experience. What I pick, what I watch is decided by me; I’m dictating my own programme. I get my news on Twitter. Life is a lot faster today.”
Technology advancements have also created new ways for planners to deliver content and offer sponsorship opportunities. With augmented reality, for example, sponsors who are absent from the tradeshow can still reach out to the audience, while the rise of telepresence technology and virtual events can help bring content to people who were not able to attend.
VanRosendale advised meeting planners to understand their audience and “market the event to who you want and the way they buy or do their job”.
“Do an audience profiling and build your event strategy around that. Planners need to have different event tracks for different audience. Build an event brand equity and then have different messaging for specific audience under that,” she suggested.
Meeting venues also need to redesign their spaces to support the new learning model and appeal to a varied audience, she urged.
In response, Angeline Lue, director of sales and marketing at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia, said the venue is already moving with the times.
“We deal with cross-gen audiences, so we have to have different meeting designs,” she said, offering examples of beanbags being used in place of chairs in meetings, the creation of a lounge with all-day refreshments where delegates can graze and network, and events being held outdoors.
TWO new national MICE entities are set to make their first appearances at this year’s IT&CM Asia (IT&CMA) in Bangkok.
Berlin Tourismus & Kongress follows its inaugural appearance at IT&CM China in Shanghai earlier this year with a presence in Bangkok this September.
Ralf Ostendorf, director market management of Berlin Tourismus & Kongress, said: “VisitBerlin has intensified marketing activities in Asia for the past years to develop new incoming markets for tourism to Berlin.”
“We believe that IT&CMA is a well-positioned platform for us to learn more about the MICE industry in Asia-Pacific and nurture our popularity in the region.”
Likewise, Dubai Business Events will also be joining IT&CMA for the first time this year. Senior manager – sales and convention services, Katrina Lance, said: “The Asia-Pacific market represents 30% of the generated MICE leads for Dubai. This is a growing market, benefiting from the growing economics that various Asian countries have been experiencing.”
This year’s edition of IT&CMA 2015 will also see the debut of six Swiss entities: Arosa Kulm; Destination Davos Klosters; Geneva Tourism & Convention; Lausanne; Montreux Riviera – Lake Geneva; Lucerne Convention Bureau; and Zurich Tourism.
IT&CMA 2015 will run at the Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld as always, between September 29 and October 1 this year. It runs alongside CTW Asia-Pacific.
THE father of Singapore’s hospitality training and a strong proponent of ASEAN regional tourism cooperation, Pakir Singh, passed away yesterday morning after battling Parkinson’s disease for many years.
A luminary with the gift of the gab and both the ambition and steel to turn vision into reality, Pakir was the man behind the setting up of the Singapore Hotel Association Training & Education Centre (SHATEC) in 1983, the region’s first dedicated hotel school, which contracted the world-renowned Swiss Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne to develop its courses.
He was the CEO of Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and CEO of SHATEC from 1979 to 2005. Pakir also served as secretary-general of the ASEAN Tourism Association for many years.
In a book to commemorate SHATEC’s 30th anniversary in 2013 written by this editor, Pakir, when asked why he was passionate about hotel training & education, said: “There was an urgent need in the 1980s for Singapore to develop skilled manpower for the hotel trade and industry. Singapore needed workers for the many hotels that were being built and I wanted to help solve the problem.
“I always felt that there was room to grow (no pun intended). I myself believed in the pursuit of excellence for its own sake. And service training – if well provided – would result in service excellence.”
In the book, veteran hotelier Jennie Chua, said: “Pakir was unique in his passion to grow SHATEC…and he did it not to make a name for himself, but to fulfil the needs of the industry. He could have done other things in life, but SHA and SHATEC were his whole life.”
The early success of SHATEC spawned other hotel schools in the region, with SHATEC even sharing its expertise to further the education cause in Asia. Said Chanin Donavanik, CEO, Dusit Hotels & Resorts Thailand, whose Dusit Thani College was set up with SHATEC’s expertise: “Pakir believed in training and education. He believed in the future of Asian travel industry. He believed in the young people of Asia.”
Margaret Heng, CEO, SHA, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “Mr Pakir was a remarkable man in every sense of the word. He is also very much a visionary who was ahead of his time in the area of hospitality education, training and development.
“It was his foresight that saw the beginning of SHATEC. His passion for SHATEC was the key driver for the success of the school. His enthusiasm for SHATEC had rubbed off on every one of us at the school and that is why we are so committed to continue his legacy.
“He was a great boss and I am very fortunate to have him as my mentor. All of us at SHA and SHATEC, and in particular myself, will definitely miss him.”
Roshan Mendis
ABACUS International has been absorbed into a Sabre Travel Network Asia-Pacific and its CEO of seven years, Robert Bailey, leaves on July 7, but Sabre’s new regional head honcho, Roshan Mendis, stopped short of saying the GDS will be rebranded as Sabre.
Two hours into his job as senior vice president, Sabre Travel Network Asia-Pacific, Mendis, who worked previously with Travelocity and Zuji, talked to Raini Hamdi this morning about what’s in store for agencies as Sabre completed its full acquisition of Abacus yesterday (July 1), well ahead of the September expectation earlier. Here are key excerpts:
First, let me understand your role. Does this mean Abacus is being rebranded as Sabre?
My appointment means Sabre takes this business and this region very seriously. It’s an incredible asset, an important acquisition, a region that is going to be the fastest-growing for a long time to come and probably, the biggest region for Sabre in time to come.
Secondly, it means we will find the ideal combination of Abacus assets (like local knowledge) and the business, expertise and product innovation we have globally at Sabre. How that translates to products, brands, etc, is yet to be determined. I’m two hours into the job.
You won’t commit that Abacus will be rebranded as Sabre but would you say that’s a possibility?
Yes, it is a possibility.
Does that mean Hans Belle, Sabre vice president/general manager Asia-Pacific, will be made redundant?
He will continue in an important role in Sabre Travel Network Asia-Pacific. The business in Asia-Pacific was managed through the Abacus partnership and Robert (Bailey) did a large part of the job. With the full acquisition, the previous Abacus CEO job becomes broader in that it manages all Sabre Travel Network assets in Asia, including Abacus.
In our article, Sabre-rattling?, agencies who are your customers here are watching to see if the acquisition will ‘rock the boat’. Continuity is an issue. So my question to you is, will there be a lot of other changes?
I understand those concerns, and my job and the team’s job over the next few months will be to address those concerns.
The best evidence of that not being a concern, though, is that Sabre has been providing the core technology and product to Abacus customers for the last 17 years. So the crux of the business – the system that agencies log on to everyday – is the Sabre system and that is not going to change. So it is an acquisition that is incredibly well-suited for a smooth transition and one where the customers will feel very little, if nothing, in the transition.
Now, over time, we hope to make things better – in the products we can bring to Asia, the knowledge we can bring to the product development team at Sabre, and providing agencies and suppliers a much more global proposition. As you know, the regional travel agencies or the country-specific agencies are moving rapidly out of the geographies they are born in; Chinese agencies are moving out of China and competing in the rest of the world; Indian agencies are moving into the Middle East and other parts of the region, so having a business and set of products that allow them to compete beyond their immediate borders is of value and that is immediately possible now with Abacus becoming an integral part of Sabre.
Can you give me a simple example why it is possible now?
Sabre’s involvement in the running of Abacus before the acquisition was via its seats around the Board of Directors’ table. Today, it’s every email, every call, every customer meeting (because of its full ownership). Now translate that into real-time decision-making and how that improves product development, customer service operations. Even though it’s a subtle change, it’s a material change.
Are you worried about Abacus’ declining marketshare?
Well, 40 per cent is an enviable marketshare number! Has that moved over the last 10 years or so? Sure it has, as markets evolve and different ones grow at different rates. We are the largest player and growing at a rate above market. We are happy where the business is and the business we have acquired but we think there is more potential in the region to grow with the market and we believe with Sabre ownership and involvement, and Abacus engagement, we can even grow ahead of the market.
How is the structure of your NMCs (National Marketing Companies) going to change?
As part of the acquisition, we bought all the relationships that Abacus has with the NMCs. We are going through a process of understanding which NMCs we want to work with more directly and which ones we will work with a JV, airlines or non-air distributors. We have some internal criteria that we use, to understand if we are better able to compete by owning the NMC or through a JV.
How are your long-term agreements with the airlines different from before?
They are materially different, as the airlines are no longer owners. Outside of that, as part of the deal we have struck with the airlines in the acquisition, we will continue to get all the support in terms of fares, products, marketing support, etc, that we enjoyed before.
But as the airlines no longer own Abacus, they can now give that kind of support to your competitors too.
I don’t think that’s something we’re particularly concerned about. Depending on their distribution objectives, have the relationships they want to have with the other GDSs. We will be focused on the relationship they will have with us.
Do you see opportunities to increase fees charged to airlines now they are no longer your owners?
This acquisition is not about that. It’s about differentiating ourselves through product and service and bringing the best of our products to the region and using the Abacus assets to get local insights so that we can be a much more Asian-ised business at a global level.
Is there an opportunity to increase incentives for agencies so they book you more?
Incentives are only one dimension of the competition. Travel agencies value incentives, product, service, relationships, as you pointed out in your article. We will compete across all those dimensions.
Six months from now if you look back, what would you like to have achieved?
I would like to have met all our 600 employees, talked to them and learnt all about the business. I would like to have met a large number of our agency customers and supplier customers and understood their aspirations, plans and businesses. And I would like to have a clear sense of how Sabre will set ourselves up to support those ambitions. If we successfully do all those things, and I intend to do them, we will be set for a very nice run in the Asia-Pacific region.
TRAVELLERS searching for the most value-for-money stay in a five-star hotel need look no further than Sri Lanka, according to Kayak’s recent analysis based on searches for five-star hotels in countries across Asia.
Sri Lanka offers the cheapest five-star luxury hotels with average rates starting from just S$241 (US$178.80) per night. For instance, Earl’s Regency, a hilltop retreat located in the town of Kandy boasts average prices that start at just S$208.
India and Malaysia follow closely behind with average rates at S$243 and S$244 respectively. Hong Kong has the most expensive five-star hotels with average rates at S$461.
Debby Soo, Kayak’s vice president APAC, believes that travelling on a budget does not mean completely ignoring luxurious hotels.
“To find a less expensive, but still amazing, five-star resort, look for destinations that are outside mega-popular tourist areas. Hotels in less-frequented destinations like Kuala Lumpur and Kochi provide the same amount of luxury for less,” said Soo in a press release announcing the findings.
Kayak’s full list of countries and their corresponding average nightly rate is as seen below:
Sri Lanka – S$241
India – S$243
Malaysia – S$244
China – S$266
Thailand – S$300
Philippines – S$311
Vietnam – S$319
Macau – S$321
Taiwan – S$341
South Korea – S$349
Cambodia – S$373
Singapore – S$420
Indonesia – S$435
Hong Kong – S$461
Kayak launched its Singapore website and mobile app in April.
